Sweet Dreams at the Goodnight Motel : Book Review
I’ve refound an author that fell off my radar screen and I’m thrilled. Curtiss Ann Matlock writes small town southern stories that sound like they could come from my own backyard, except her fictional stories end well, and my real life stories–well, they haven’t reached ‘The End’ yet.
Sweet Dreams At The Goodnight Motel
is women’s fiction at it’s finest as the book explores Claire, who hits middle age and finally grows into herself. As Claire enters her forties she finds she’s not passionate about anything. She would like to be, but is stuck in placid contentment, instead. Two years after her divorce, she still has fantasies of making her old relationship work, but the sparks just won’t fly. Her job is same ole’, same ole’. Ex-wife and legal secretary sums up her whole existence. Her life is nothing bad, nothing good, just plain nothing.
Then, out of the blue, a phrase about looking for life that she reads on a truck stop’s bathroom wall worms it’s way into her psyche. Claire decides to look for her life where her life began, a little town in Oklahoma. She stops living for everyone else’s dreams and starts learning to dream her own dreams.
What makes this book stand out among all the other ‘woman finding herself’ books is the author’s skill. You don’t just read Ms. Matlock’s writing, you live it. Being a writer, I make a point to take special note of how another writer crafts their stories. Reading this book, I forgot all about the craft and got lost in the story. Going back to look, I found Ms. Matlock’s skill and technique to be a creation of great depth and beauty, so strong the story keeps me reading way past my bedtime, but so artful, it takes me to depths of Story that a less skillful writer can take me–without me even realizing it!
Sweet Dreams at the Goodnight Motel is one of several books written in Valentine, Oklahoma. You don’t have to read the earlier works to feel a part of this book. No boring backstory here!
I am ordering her latest June 2010 book as we speak. I’m hopeful that Little Town, Great Big Life
will reward me as much as Sweet Dreams At The Goodnight Motel
has.
(The links go to Amazon.com if you want to read an excerpt of the stories.)
